My Life in Books - Anne Doyle, Delcan Hughes & Evelyn Cusack

The final session at the recent LAI conference was a lively panel discussion with former RTE newscaster Anne Doyle, novelist and playwright Declan Hughes and meteorologist and RTE weather presenter Evelyn Cusack chaired by John Quinn.

It was just the thing to round off an intense two days of presentations and talks - a relaxed and informal discussion about the participants favourite books, hosted by the veteran broadcaster and writer John Quinn.

Evelyn Cusack has fond childhood memory of reading comics she inherited from an older brother, and she's even managed to hold on to a few down the years (some dating from 1965!). As well as Superman her other favourite series was 'Uncanny Tales' which ignited her interested in physics and science.
One of her favorite contemporary popular science books is A History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, a book she heartily recomends to everyone. She actually owns this in three diferent formats, standard paperbook, illustrated hardback and the audiobook version for listening to in the car. Her classic of choice is Middlemarch by George Eliot, which she describes as being the 'ultimate chicklit' and Dorothea from the same book is her top fictional heroine.

Declan Hughes credits Enid Blyton for kindling a lifelong interest in mysteries and thrillers, both reading and writing but flagged a lesser known novel by E Nesbit - The Magic City - as the book that he remembers most vividly from his childhood. One of his favourite authors as an adult is Dashiell Hammett (himself a former Pinkerton detective) and he talked about The Maltese Falcon by Hammett which introduces the idea of the private detective as an morally ambivalent antihero. He also talked about his admriation for Evelyn Waugh, 'his cold writer's eye', and the freshness of his writing that could be sometimes take a turn towards the dark and cruel. Of Waugh's 1934 novel A Handful of Dust he said 'I don't think a better book about adultery has been written'.

Anne Doyle's first time reading the news was as a child when she used to read articles from the local paper to her mother. Like Evelyn she also remembers comics like Victor and Hotspur looming large in her childhood reading as well as enjoying classics like Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Her favourite Dickens book is The Pickwick Papers, which she first encountered when she was very young, and which she still enjoys rereading. She talked about her fondness for the poetry of Patrick Kavanagh - straddling a rural background with city living his poems describe a world she's familiar with.